This was a hard lesson for Brandon. He took a moment to reassess his situation. No matter what, he was still trapped in a weak, underage body. He shouldn't rush things; he needed to accumute the means to leave home slowly, bit by bit, rather than charging off with just a practice wooden sword. In this regard, his parents were still showing him care. Brandon instinctively rubbed his sore backside. He knew that once a punishment like that happened once, it could happen again and again. From today on, he would have to be careful, or it would be him who suffered next time.
"Eat your food one bite at a time; handle things one step at a time," he thought to himself. Now, his task was to cim his nd outside the castle. First, he needed a symbol, a fg. Looking out the window, he saw the blue family fgs fluttering in the wind, each adorned with a simple six-pointed snowfke, the family crest. Brandon decided to keep it simple—two family fgs, each with his name "Brandon" written above the snowfke. After that, Brandon, Dani, and Flower, the bck cat, walked out of the castle gates, their progress marked by the curious gazes of the onlookers.
This was Brandon's first time stepping out of the castle gates on his own. The wilds of the North were dangerous, teeming with wild beasts and fierce predators. The boundary between safety and danger was just a wall or a row of fences. Stepping outside meant entering the wilderness, while stepping back meant returning to the safety of home. The Northmen often patrolled the borders of their homes, ensuring that dangerous animals didn’t venture too close, though even that couldn't guarantee complete safety. As such, children were always restricted to a very small area.
Outside the castle, the snow had already bnketed everything. Brandon and Dani trudged along the main road, their progress slow and borious. After about a hundred meters, Dani pnted the two fgs a few dozen meters apart, marking the boundaries of Brandon’s new territory. Returning to Brandon's side, Dani lifted him and pced him on her shoulder. This gave Brandon a strange sense of discomfort. She should have carried him, not pced him so casually on her shoulder like this.
They both stood quietly, looking at the small patch of nd. The terrain was decent—there was a moderately-sized hill, and at the foot of it stood several tall trees, their branches casting shade over part of the path.
Brandon, holding Dani’s head, asked, “Dani, how many days do you think it will take to chop down these trees?”
Dani, who had the urge to throw this brat off her shoulder, retorted, “We? It's just me, okay? What can you do? And where are we going to get the tools? Can you just conjure up an axe or something?”
“Dani, don’t rush. Show me your weapon. I’ve got a pn,” Brandon said with a grin.
“No way. I know your abilities. Don’t even think about touching my weapon,” Dani responded firmly.
“Old things go, new things come. I can give you something better.”
“You little liar, you better give me the ‘better’ first.”
Brandon and Dani exchanged sharp words and gres, but eventually, they reached a consensus. They would deal with the trees after winter. For now, the cold and harsh conditions made any further pns pointless. In reality, they were so poor they could barely scrape by. Dani had strength, but with Brandon being more of a liability than an asset, there was little they could do.
On their way back, as Brandon sat perched on Dani’s shoulder, he began to quietly scheme. After much thought, an uncontrolble idea popped into his mind—deception. In his moment of glee, he couldn’t help but hum the tune to a familiar song: “We all have a home, and many brothers and sisters, and the scenery is nice…”
